How do you go from prejudice to discrimination? - Chapter 9

Discrimination is behaving differently towards people because of their group membership. Usually the term is used when someone acts in an unfair manner, but it can also refer to giving someone an advantage. Discrimination can be verbally or behaviourally. There are different forms of discrimination and luckily there is a system to classify them. The different forms will be discussed in the next text.

What is discrimination?

The system that is used to classify discrimination exists out of three forms of discrimination: blatant, subtle and covert. Blatant discrimination is harmful treatment that is intentional and easy visible. This can happen everywhere. It can occur at school, in the workplace and in a shop. Some forms of blatant discrimination against certain groups are illegal and condemned. An example of this is racial discrimination in school or at work. Discrimination against gay men, however, is legal in most parts of the worlds and is seen as legal.

What is subtle discrimination?

Subtle discrimination also exists out of harmful treatment, but this type is less visible than blatant discrimination. This form of discrimination is often unintentional and the person that treats the other in a harmful way does not always know that he or she is doing this. When a black child writes good essays one teacher might not see his actual talent, because he might think that black children are not good in academic things. The child will never be recognized as a talented writer.

Migroaggressions are small-scale, everyday verbal and nonverbal behaviors that demean other social groups or individual members of those groups. It can take on many forms, such as communications that convey rudeness and insensitivity to a person's identity. An example is accidently-on-purpose referring to a transgender person by his/her previous gender. 

What is covert discrimination?

Covert discrimination is a harmful treatment that is hidden, intended and maliciously motivated. An example of this is tokenism. That is hiring someone from a minority group just to show that the firm doesn’t discriminate. Another example is restricting members of a group to a limited number of job categories. This type of discrimination doesn’t only happen in the workplace. It can also happen in the housing market. One real estate agent may say to a family of a minority group that a certain house is of the market when it in fact isn’t. Also, landlords discriminate against prospective renters.

What is meant with interpersonal discrimination?

Interpersonal discrimination is a person-to-person discrimination. One person threats a person unfairly because his or her group membership. Usually people think that interpersonal discrimination is caused by prejudice. One would expect a high correlation between prejudice and discriminatory behaviour. Research, however, has found that that there is an average correlation between these two. There is, however, a higher correlation between prejudice and the intention to discriminate. People say that they will do something, but don’t always do it. Prejudice is related to discrimination, but this relationship is complex. There are some factors that influence this relationship. These factors will now be discussed.

What are personal stereotypes?

The first factor is personal stereotypes. Personal stereotypes are stereotypes of an individual about group characteristics. These stereotypes usually overlap with social stereotypes, but some things are different. Also, not everybody agrees with the social norms of a society. Prejudiced people will discriminate against people who fit their personal stereotype.

What is attitude-behaviour correspondence?

The second behaviour is attitude-behaviour correspondence. This refers to how well an attitude matches the behaviour it is supposed to be associated with. This can be found in uncontrollable attitudes. One can say that he/she isn’t prejudiced, but his/her automatic, nonverbal behaviour can show otherwise.

What is meant with perceived social support?

The third factor is perceived social support. This refers to the extent to which people believe that others share their attitudes and opinions. When prejudiced people find a high-perceived social support, they will be more likely to express discriminatory behaviour than when they find a low perceived social support.

Why are people motivated to control prejudice?

Some people are motivated to avoid appearing prejudiced. This, however, requires a lot of mental work. You must be aware that prejudice is affecting your behaviour and you must change that behaviour consciously in a nonprejudiced response. This is a lot of work. People are in fact relieved when they’re allowed to express prejudices they have been controlling. So, even people who score low on prejudice can sometimes behave in a prejudiced manner. This is called regressive prejudice (or regressive racism). This occurs because controlling prejudiced responses requires mental resources. When this is not available, people don’t control prejudice anymore, but express it.

People might try to look unprejudiced and they may succeed by saying the good things. Their nonverbal behaviour, however, shows otherwise. Uncontrollable behaviour is usually the key for detecting prejudiced attitudes. Even if people are really motivated to control their behaviour certain factors can work against this process. Cognitive demands can reduce mental resources and therefore reduce control. Another factor has to do with social norms. Usually people try to look unprejudiced, because of social norms. If the effect of the social norms could be reduced so could the motivation to control prejudice. People comply with norms, because they want to avoid punishment (for acting prejudiced) or receive rewards (for acting not prejudiced). Because of this people who are anonymous will be less motivated to control their prejudice. Emotions also have impact on this process. People who are angry are less willing to control their prejudice. The last factor that can influence expressing prejudice is moral credentials. This means that if people know that they have behaved unprejudiced in the past and others have seen this, they will be less motivated to try restricting their prejudiced attitude. If someone tells them that they are prejudiced, they will disagree with this and tell the person about the time that they behaved unprejudiced.

How to react to having acted in a prejudiced manner?

What if you have reacted in a prejudiced manner and someone calls you out on it. What will you do? People who are low in prejudice would feel discomfort, because they see that they should not have responded that way. They also feel guilty. People, who are high in prejudice, also feel discomfort but they don’t feel guilty.

Also, the type of prejudice is important. People usually feel guiltier about racial prejudice than sexism. Also, people are more likely to dismiss the accusation of prejudice when the accusation is made by a member of the group the accusation was made to. This is because the prejudiced person doesn’t feel really threatened by the person from the group he discriminated.

Does discrimination in the workplace occur?

The first step of a job is the hiring process. Researchers have done a lot of studies to figure out to what extent and in which form discrimination can be found. They usually do this by the employment audit. They train two men, one white and one black, to behave the same way during a job interview. These two men also have the same qualifications and researchers give them even the same close to wear to the job interview. Both men will apply for the same job. Research found that when discrimination occurred the white person was more likely to be hired than the black person. The form in which discrimination occurs is the offering of interviews. Black and White people are equally accepted to apply for the job, but white applicants were more likely to be asked for an interview. Also, when more than one opening was available and the job was offered to both applicants, the black man usually started with a lower salary. Black people also were sent to a lower job than they applied for. According to employment agencies some bosses also ask them to not send black applicants. Some researchers think that the employment audits is not a good way of researching the hiring process. This is because both people are different. Even if they wear the same clothes and have the same qualifications, they do not have the same personality. They prefer to test the hiring process with mailed-in résumés. They send in résumés with typical white and typical black names and found out that people with white names were more likely to be invited for an interview than black people were. When it does occur that both the black and the white person are asked to come to an interview, it is more likely that the white person will be liked more.

Is gender linked with discrimination?

Less discrimination is found in the case of gender. Men are just slightly more likely to be hired for a job then women. Especially when this is a male-stereotyped job. Researchers studies reviews published in the ‘80s and found that gender discrimination was a big issue. So, gender discrimination has decreased over time. One part of gender discrimination, however, is still active. This is pregnancy. Pregnant women are less likely to be hired than women who are not pregnant. The applicants can be seen as equally qualified; still the pregnant women will usually not be hired. This is (of course) because people think that pregnant women are more likely to quit their job or take a lot of days of.

Once you have a job, you will be evaluated on your performance. Positive performance leads to promotions of course. Men and women are usually evaluated positively in the same way. Men slightly received higher evaluations for masculine-stereotyped items and women received higher evaluated for feminine-stereotyped items.

Does ethnicity affect job performances?

Ethnicity does affect job performance evaluations. White employees receive higher evaluations than black employees, but there was no difference in the evaluations of white and Hispanic people. Some researchers argue that there is no real racial prejudice in this, but that it reflects real racial differences. Black people had lower average scores on objective measures of work performance. This lower level, however, can be caused by discrimination. Because of discrimination, black people might have a different work experience than white people. This may affect their work performance.

There are a couple of workplace characteristics that could aversively affect minority group members’ job performance. One of these is the lost opportunities effect. Because minority and majority group members are treated differently they may have different job opportunities. Minority group members have less favourable opportunities and because of this lower performance for these minority members may result. Also, black managers had sometimes problems with prejudice. Black managers feel less accepted than their white peers by their supervisors. Also, white people showed more absence when the number of minority group members increased at their job.

Although women and men receive equal performance ratings their supervisors see women as having less promotion potential than men. Women have to wait longer for a promotion and they receive fewer promotions the higher they move in the organizational structure. Even there where women receive higher job evaluations, they are not promoted faster than men. Also, men are more likely to be promoted in female-dominant occupations than women. This is called the glass escalator effect. Men, however, experience more negative stereotypes in these occupations. They are usually seen as feminine.

Black workers are less likely to be promoted than white workers, even if they receive the same job evaluations. Also, white employees are paid more than black employees in the same occupation. Even if black workers receive first-level managerial positions, they are more likely to supervise black workers than white workers. Because most black workers are in low-level positions, this means that black managers are found in low-level positions of authority. This is called the sticky floor effect. Also, black workers are more likely to be taken from their career-path and put in another job, because according to the stereotype, they fit better there. One’s mentor can also have influence on salaries and promotions. When someone has a white mentor, he has more chance to earn more money than when he has a non-white mentor or female mentor. Unfortunately, it is usually white people who have white managers.

What about individuals in organizations?

Organisations do not discriminate, people in organizations discriminate. Individuals enforce discriminatory policies, make discriminatory hiring decisions and give discriminatory job evaluations. This section discusses how individual-level psychological processes influence discriminatory outcomes in organizations.

What is the stereotype fit hypothesis?

According to the stereotype fit hypothesis women hold fewer executive positions, because the characteristics associated with effective managers are similar to the cultural stereotypes of men and different from the cultural stereotypes of women. Therefore men are seen as better suited for an executive job. When someone sees a job as more masculine, he or she will recommend a man for the job because a man has more masculine features than a woman. The stereotype fit hypothesis also works for ethnicity. People think that certain jobs fit better with the characteristic of white people than that of black people. This also works for low-level jobs. People see black and Hispanic workers as unskilled, unmotivated illiterate and therefore they would not recommend them. Finally, stereotypes can also result in advantage for a group. The Asian stereotype includes being talented in maths and computers. Because of this, they will be more likely to be hired in these kinds of jobs than white people.

Some researchers think that it’s not the decision maker’s group stereotypes that affect discriminatory decisions, but that it’s his or her respect towards the group he or she is making a decision about. People hold different degrees of respect for various groups based on the amount of power the groups have in society. Men have more power than women in society and because more men occupy higher positions than women, men are respected more as a group than women. Greater respect leads to higher hiring recommendations and that masculine stereotypic traits also lead to a higher hiring recommendation.

What does shifting standards mean?

Another factor that affects promotion is the shifting standard. As said before, women and men receive equal performance evaluations and promotions are based on performance. Why do men then get promoted more than women? This is because of the shifting standards model. Negative stereotypes lead people to hold lower performance expectations for women and member of minority groups. So when somebody rates a women, he or she will probably do this to the expectation he or she has for the performance of a woman. So when a woman is given a 4 out of 5 on job evaluation and a man also got 4 out of 5, it will not mean the same. The 4 of the woman is based on her evaluation in comparison to other women. The 4 of the woman translates to a 4 on the objective scale, whereas the 4 of the man translates to a 7 on the objective scale.

What is contemporary prejudice?

In the employment context, people may show contemporary prejudice. They will say that they didn’t choose for a black man, because certain characteristics and that the decision is not really based on race, while it in fact actually is. A prejudiced employee will focus more on negative characteristics and use this to not hire a black person. He or she might also say that he has to hire white people, because his cliental is mostly white and they would not want to be served/helped by black people. Another reason why people don’t hire black people, is because of company norms. Some companies don’t want minority groups and that’s the reason why an employer doesn’t higher a black employee.

What are hate crimes?

Hate crimes are the most severe form of discrimination. These are criminal offences of which the victims were chosen because of their race, religion, disability or sexual orientation. Hate crimes have not motivation other than attacking a member of a particular group. Most hate crimes are based on the victim’s race or ethnicity. Note that hate crimes can also be against white victims.

Who are hate crime offenders?

So who offends these hate crimes? In the reports of hate crimes, most perpetrators are male. Two thirds of suspects were known by the victim (neighbour, school mate or colleague). This shows that hate crimes are generally not committed by members of hate groups, but tend to be opportunistic crimes.

What are motivations for hate crimes?

There are four motivations for hate crimes:

1. Thrill seeking
2. Defending one’s territory from outsiders
3. Retaliation for a perceived offence committed by an outgroup member
4. A commitment to a certain ideology
5. Some researchers think that there is also a fifth factor, peer group dynamics

Why thrill seeking?

Thrill seeking as a motivation for a hate crime is committing a crime because one wants to feel excitement and doesn’t want to feel boredom anymore. This is usually triggered by an immature desire to display power. The only benefit from the effect is usually a sense of one’s own importance and bragging rights. Thrill seekers usually express little animosity toward the group whose members they have attacked. Thrill seekers usually choose as targets people they think will be easy targets. Also, they choose people who are unwilling or unable to report the crime, like Amish people. Thrill seekers usually justify their actions by minimizing the crime’s impact on victims and as harmless fun.

Why use ingroup defense?

Defensive hate crimes are done because the perpetrators see themselves as protecting their territory from invaders. They don’t want to let outsiders in (their neighbourhood). Usually all-White neighbourhoods portray hate crimes when they don’t want a minority group member to join the neighbourhood.

Retaliatory hate crimes are done, because the offenders seek revenge for a real or rumoured attack on a member of their ingroup. Although they seek revenge, they don’t seek out the person who they believed committed the offence against their ingroup member.

Mission-motivated hate crimes are carried out because of certain commitments to one’s ideology. Some offenders are members of hate groups, but they sometimes act without knowledge of the group’s leader. Leaders of hate groups usually oppose violence publicly, because they see it as a threat to their recruitment efforts.

What is the role of peer group dynamics?

Many hate crimes are committed by groups of offenders usually young men who know each other. Peer group dynamics can play an important part in motivating participation in these crimes. Groups sometimes commit this because they will feel stronger and they will feel closer to one another. Peer-motivated hate crimes exhibit little animosity toward their victim’s groups, but they also don’t respect them. They tend to minimize their personal responsibility and say that they did not have a choice. If they did not do it, they would lose the approval of their friends.

What is the role of normalization?

One factor that facilitates hate crimes is the acceptance of such behaviour by the community. If the community sees hate crimes as normal and doesn’t condemn it, one is more likely to do it. Some factors that inhibit hate crimes are lack of opportunity. Some people avoid homosexuals and therefore don’t have the opportunity to do this. Other factors are fear of negative consequences. Also, moral beliefs and religion are factors that inhibit hate crimes.

Which effect do hate crimes have on victims?

Hate crime victims experience a lot of psychological distress and feel like they don’t have full control over their lives. They know that hate crime victims are chosen at random and therefore think that they can’t do anything to take control over their lives. Also, some victims don’t believe that the attack on them was not a hate crime, even if the police said so. Another consequence of a hate crime is secondary victimization. This means that the psychological effects are not only seem by the victim of the hate crime, but also on member’s of his or her group. Hate crimes can victimize entire social groups.